


sk8er boy

by MargaritaDaemonelix



Series: lonashipping week 2019 [1]
Category: Pocket Monsters | Pokemon - All Media Types, Pocket Monsters: Sun & Moon | Pokemon Sun & Moon Versions, Pocket Monsters: Ultra Sun & Ultra Moon | Pokemon Ultra Sun & Ultra Moon Versions
Genre: Ballet, Established Relationship, F/M, Lonashipping Week 2019, Minor Injuries, Skateboarding, kahili's mentioned for like 0.1 second, no i did not listen to sk8er boy by avril lavigne while writing this, well minor in their fields anyhow, you can tear domestic gladimoon out of my cold dead hands
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-22
Updated: 2019-07-22
Packaged: 2020-07-09 02:28:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,358
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19880095
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MargaritaDaemonelix/pseuds/MargaritaDaemonelix
Summary: he was a boy, she was a girl, can I make it any more obvious?he was a punk, she did ballet, what more can I say/lonashipping week | day 1: injury





	sk8er boy

A rustle, and then Moon throws her bag over her shoulder, checks herself one more time to make sure she's shucked off her entire costume, and painfully pushes herself to her feet.

There was a time when Moon had laughed at the fairy tale of the little mermaid, and wondered how each step could feel like _treading on knives_. She winces now to think of her own innocence, her childhood cries of pain whenever she'd come home from ballet practice. The graceful mermaid on stage, after all, hides a bloodied step and a painful gait that wobbles from side to side.

It's just one step after another, out of the building and onto the subway, but Moon has to force herself through every step of it. The fence that surrounds the parking lot becomes her crutch for the heartbeat that she spends next to it; the handrail on the escalator down to the station is her panacea. She's slow, but home is still far, far away, and she has a long way to go, and she'd like to make it home before nine tonight, please.

She's lucky to find a seat tonight, and exhales in relief seeing that there enough seats to go around to anyone who might get on this train. The elderly couple seated next to her watch in transfixed silence as she absentmindedly adjusts the bandages around her toes through her sneaker and blood starts to seep through the fabric.

Just a few more stops, and then she'll be home.

Moon hobbles out of the subway, arguably more sore than before, and looks for the escalator. She'll need to conserve her strength for the next leg of her quest home. She thinks wistfully back to her childhood days when she could walk for miles and miles without stopping once, and regrets not finding an apartment closer to the subway station.

Her phone buzzes. She fishes it out of her bag, nearly trips over the end of the escalator, and answers. "Hello?"

_"You're not home yet."_

_Blunt as ever._ "Just got off the subway," she admits, bracing herself to walk across a series of uneven tiled floors (god, who even puts uneven tiled floors right in front of a set of stairs?) and nearly twisting her ankle on the first step. "I'll be home in ten, don't worry."

A pause, then a sigh. Moon has known Gladion for long enough to hear his relief, even in a simple exhale. _"Do you need me to pick you up?"_

"No, it's alright." She smiles, even though she knows he can't see it. "Is the chili in the slow cooker done?"

_"It is. I don't know what I'd do without your cooking."_

"I don't know what you'd do without my cooking either," she quips, breaking into laughter. "Alright, I'll see you soon. Love you," she adds as an afterthought, as if she's sixteen and pining after him for the first time all over again.

_"Love you too."_

The line cuts, and Moon can't help the goofy grin that lines her face as she puts her phone away.

The rest of the climb up to her apartment is simpler. She punches the passcode in at the door, politely greets the guard in the lobby, and barely manages to not sit on the floor in the elevator, which is a win in her books. There's a party unfolding on the fifth floor, and some drunk partygoers get on the elevator, but thankfully they leave her alone and abscond back to their own floors.

Moon gets off on the twelfth floor, and begins the slow trudge to the other side of the hallway where her own apartment is.

She doesn't even have to knock - the door swings open, and Gladion is there, decked in his grey hoodie and pajama pants with his hair falling over one side of his face.

"Is the chili any good?" she manages to croak.

Gladion nods, once, and then scoops her up, bag and all, like the true gentleman that he is. Moon protests weakly, but he doesn't let go until he deposits her in the soft sofa, and even then he doesn't say a word until he's taken her bag away and moved their ratty old ottoman under her feet.

"I should have gone to pick you up," he mutters, running back from the bathroom with alcohol swabs and a new roll of bandages. "Do you need me to throw your sneakers in the wash?"

Moon shakes her head, but he does it anyways, and tosses her socks in along with it. He hisses at the bloodied wad of bandages that she's wrapped around her foot. "What was it this time?"

"Threw one of the golden apples in the wrong direction, tripped over it," she mumbles. There had been no short amount of concern from her fellow dancers after the accident, but she'd played it off. With opening night approaching so quickly, no one has time to deal with so simple an injury. "Bandaged it up and got back to practice.

Gladion hands her a cushion, and she takes it gratefully, mashing her face into it. "I'm a dumbass," she says, voice muffled into the fabric. "How does Kahili stay so strong _en pointe_? She has to—literally—fly across the stage for basically the entire ballet, while I end up nearly faceplanting over something as stupid as an apple?"

"You're not a dumbass," Gladion says softly, wiping away blood and replacing her bandages slowly. "Accidents happen, Moon, especially in ballet. There's always going to be that risk when there are objects rolling around on stage. Things that are out of your control aren't your fault."

He secures the final bandage with a deftly-tied knot, and flicks his head up to swing his hair out of his face. "There," he says, not realizing Moon's growing horror at the massive bandaid hastily plastered on his cheekbone. "That should do it."

He catches her eye, and the only thing she sees is guilt. "Oh, uh, I can explain." She tosses the cushion away, and slips to her feet. "Moon, no, don't-"

"Sit down," she snaps, and feels only a little guilty when he obliges. "You could have told me."

"I didn't want to worry you," he says quietly.

She returns from the bathroom with the box of patterned bandaids, and more alcohol swabs because she knows he likes to cover up his injuries. "Did you overshoot a jump?"

The tiny nod is all the confirmation she needs, as she peels the bandaid away and clicks her tongue disapprovingly at the bloody scrape underneath. "Fourth time this week," he says, obviously downcast although he sits dutifully and lets her clean his wounds. "I ended up skidding across the pipe and scraped a few things."

"A few things," Moon echoes, letting her gaze wander down towards his bandaged hands, the scabs on his forearm, the angry flash of red under the collar of his hoodie. "Well, wouldn't be the first time either of us has tried to hide our injuries."

She almost says "and it won't be the last", but that's a stain on both their egos that would hurt far longer than scrapes and bruises. They both know they have problems, and maybe fate really was smiling upon them when they got together, because it's only the fact that they're bold enough to speak up about it that helps them grow past those problems.

Moon sneaks another look, and is almost relieved to see the same fear that she feels in Gladion's eyes.

"Take it slow for a few days," she advises. "Y'know, my instructor used to say that once you do something too many times, it kinda gets rotten, and you have to relearn it fresh from the start again. Try doing some simpler jumps first—after you recover, of course," she adds, eyeing the red that lines his arm.

"Yeah." Gladion smiles; it's one of the few luxuries that Moon knows she can rely on. "Good thing tomorrow's Saturday, huh?"

(They fall. They pick themselves back up. They patch up their injuries together. It's how they roll.)

**Author's Note:**

> so i've never participated in a shipping week before and i think this is a swell introduction, and an amazing pairing to be writing for!  
> full disclosure: i've never listened to the entirety of sk8er boy in a single sitting, nor have i played Pokemon Sun and Moon. on the upside though i've consumed enough gladimoon content for a single lifetime and i am now mobilizing myself to start producing some. it really be like that as an author i think  
> a fun fact about this fic is that the ballet inspiration i used for moon is stravinsky's firebird! moon is casted as the lead princess (which is not traditionally a part danced en pointe, if my research serves me right) and kahili is the firebird (which is a pointe part). i really love the folklore surrounding the firebird so i wanted to have a little fun with that  
> also some of the prompts this year are really cool and i'm having a lot of fun writing them, so massive props to everyone who suggested and voted for them! i'm also super excited to see what everyone is writing this week, y'alls are super talented and i am absolutely hyped for this week!  
> good luck to everyone!


End file.
